SpiderMan: Tangled
by Zak Chambers
Summary: Venturing into the mysterious, creepy side of SpiderMan's life. If you like JMS stuff, you'll love this. Read and review please!
1. Chapter 1

The Spectacular Spider-Man

Issue #1 – Tangled, Part One written by Zak Chambers

* * *

The cool night air swept over his masked face, renewing him. More often than not the city he loved so much and gave his all to protect ended up spitting back in his face, but when he felt gravity tug at his webline, and pierced the soft blanket of night, Spider-Man could forget all that.

Each night he would hit the rooftops and leap unfrightened into the air. Each night he would bring down any number of bad guys. And each night there was always the inevitable encounter with an angry citizen. Their comments varied but usually remained similar.

"Wretched webslinger!" was one of his favorites. He appreciated alliteration even if it was unintentional. Having a name like Peter Parker had that affect on him.

"Stupid webhead!" was another one he heard often. He gave it a zero for creativity but sometimes had to award points for when the statement was followed up by a flower vase being thrown at his head.

"Arrogant criminal!" usually brought up the rear as far as his favorite accusations went. It was because of one man that Spider-Man received statements like that on a nightly basis, and that man was none other than the infamous J. Jonah Jameson.

Jameson had apparently made it his life's mission to drag Spidey's otherwise good name through the mud. Yellow journalism at its finest, Jameson took pride in his headlines for the Daily Bugle that New York's citizens took their copy points from. As far as public images went Spider-Man had one of the worst and it was all thanks to J.J. Why Jameson had such a monumental grudge against him Spidey would never know.

Spider-Man plopped onto the corner of a Manhatten brownstone overlooking Central Park, relaxing into a crouch that would seem uncomfortable to most other people. His ability to cling to just about any surface allowed him to perch on the side of the building as opposed to a horizontal surface, which overall gave him a better view. Plus it just looked cool.

"Another night out on the town," Spidey said to no one. "Just me, myself, and I. Unless you count the two muggers waiting for a nice police officer to come cut them down from the lamppost on Fifth and Main."

Extending his wrist, Spider-Man pressed down on the webshooter concealed beneath his glove, which in turn shot out a thick wad of custom made webbing from the hidden nozzle. It raced through the open air to latch onto the corner of the next building, solidifying as it soared. No sooner had the fresh webline made contact than Spider-Man yanked down on it and swung out across the street below.

The relative solace he found in webslinging was short lived.

"Help!" screamed a woman from somewhere down in the thick woods of the park. Releasing the webline prematurely, Spider-Man dropped down through the air and clung to the wall of the building he had been swinging from. He tried to get a visual of the damsel in distress but the blanketing nightfall in addition to the cluster of trees made it nearly impossible to see anything.

Firing another webline, Spider-Man anchored his transportation on the top of a flagpole and swung down to ground level. He hit the grass covered park with a thump and fell into a crouch, scanning the immediate area for signs of a woman that needed his help.

That's when he felt it. The panging feeling was hard to describe. He once compared it to the enhanced senses of another vigilante named Daredevil, but even then he didn't think he was doing his 'spider-sense' justice. His sixth sense for danger had come along as part of the package deal that were his animalistic powers. It allowed him a moment of precognition, materializing in the back of his head in the form of a small buzzing. Usually, the greater the danger the greater the buzzing.

Right now the buzzing was like a siren going off inside his brain, demanding he move immediately. Spider-Man cast himself to one side, somersaulting in midair to land facing the direction he sensed the danger coming from. He stole a glance to his side, where he had been crouched, and saw a pair of silver daggers imbedded in the soft earth.

"Look what we have here," someone said. Spidey saw a pair of bulky thugs walk out of the bushes toward him. The larger one had an assortment of knives and daggers clinging to his black vest, while the other was fighting to suppress a smile. "It's like an infestation in our hood, Tony!"

"Hehe," the other one, Tony, giggled. "Yeah, Big John. Gonna have to squash those bugs."

"Okay," Spidey quipped, "who forgot to pick up their toys after dinner? I nearly tripped on your little collectibles. If your mother catches you—"

"Help me! Someone help!"

The girl screaming tumbled out of the bushes, the same ones that the thugs had crept out of, with her clothes barely hanging on. Her blouse was torn in several places and there were cuts on her cheeks, complete with trickles of blood running down her otherwise unblemished skin. Spider-Man looked in a stare with the two brutes that twitched when they saw that their prey was getting away.

Spider-Man quickly regarded the pair of thugs. In any city but New York the two might look out of place, but the simple fact of the matter was that an overweight man twirling shimmering silver knives, as well as an accomplice that could barely contain a maniacal laughter, just sort of blended in with the landscape. As far as street trash went they weren't anything special.

The larger one turned to toss a throwing blade at the fleeing woman, but Spider-Man was much faster, thanks in no small part to his tainted blood. With a flick of his wrist the overweight thug's throwing hand was covered in a sticky goo that wouldn't come off no matter how hard he pumped his fist.

"What the?" Big John blurted out in irritation, which suddenly flared up into rage. "Tony! Kill that freak!"

Tony managed to stifle his laugh long enough to concentrate of grasping the fully automatic Uzi that had been hidden under his jacket. He pulled back the trigger and sprayed the nearby ground with bullets, not needing to bother with something so trivial as aiming. Not when he possessed a weapon that relied more on general direction than pinpoint accuracy.

The hot lead perforated the ground but the object of attention, namely their friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man, had all ready leapt over their heads to avoid the attack. The heightened agility that he had mastered since being an awkward teenager was at his precise command as he twisted in midair, planting his feet squarely into Tony's forehead with enough force to make him tumble over several times before laying him out on the ground.

"Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can't you see?" Spider-Man sang as he turned to face the bulky thug. "You ever heard that song? I don't remember the rest of it, but you kids and your rapping music—whoa!"

His spider-sense warned him a few seconds ahead of time, but he was still taken by surprise by the sheer speed of someone like Big John. The thug's webbed fist nearly knocked Spidey's head clean off its shoulders. Spider-Man bent over backward, his flexibility being tested almost to its limit, but he managed to dodge the clubbing blow. Instead of springing back up after the bulldozer fist had passed him by, Spider-Man allowed gravity to take over and he dropped back. He flung both his feet out and caught Big John just under his chin with a loud smack.

The brute took a few steps back. Spidey had no doubt that the thug was seeing birdies thanks to his proportionally augmented strength giving his kick that little extra oomph. He could have sworn he felt the ground shake slightly when Big John crashed into it.

"All that meat on ya and you're still packing a glass jaw?" Spidey quipped. "Tsk, tsk. Isn't your face going to be red at the next annual street hooligans' conference. I bet they make you sit way in the back under the bad lighting and everything."

After hosing the pair down with a healthy dose of webbing, content that it would hold them until he pointed a police officer toward them, Spider-Man began to look around the darkened park for any trace of the assaulted woman. She had looked pretty beat up and he wanted to make sure she got medical treatment. As sad and unbelievable as it seemed, the statistics on unreported personal assaults were staggering.

She wasn't in the immediate area but after swinging to the top of a nearby tree he saw her leaning against a streetlight close to the edge of the park perimeter. Latching on another webline to a tree branch between them, Spidey swung back down to the ground and made sure that the light covered him completely. No need to scare off the person he was trying to help by sneaking up on her.

"Stay back!" she said as soon as she caught notice of him.

"Relax, m'am," the vigilante replied. He held up both his hands, palms out, in a gesture of humility. "I just want to make sure you're okay. I can get an ambulance for you, or a squad car, or—"

Spider-Man paused as he stared at the woman. Now that she was in the light and there weren't a pair of thugs trying to take him down he could focus on what she looked like. Aside from the torn clothing and scratched skin, she was an attractive redhead that looked tone and in shape. Her blazing red hair, which shocked him that he hadn't noticed before, was long enough that it draped lazily over her shoulders.

She was panting from running through the shrubs that had blocked her from the nearest streetlight. Sweat glistened off her skin in the moonlight, but somehow she remained an air of feminine beauty.

It wasn't the fact that he had just saved this woman moments ago that held his attention. Looking at her in the light, he saw a face he recognized like none other on Earth. He suppressed the need to rip his mask off and run to her side, for some reason thinking that would be the wrong thing to do. It went against his nature to stand twenty feet away from her, but the terrified look on her face told him he didn't dare come near.

Near the woman he loved. The woman he had married.

"Mary Jane?"

"Stay away from me!" she demanded. She gripped the streetlight with both hands and moved behind it. "I'll scream, I swear I'll scream!"

"What? Why? Sweetheart, I don't—"

Mary Jane turned to face the street on the other side of a row of hedges behind her and started waving her arms in the air. At that time of night typically people would be asleep in their warm beds, but in the Big Apple there were a few stray cars that contained people that were just waking up to hit the trendy nightclubs. A passing taxicab screeched to a halt when he saw her excited plea for help.

Confused, Spider-Man took a step forward but stopped when he saw Mary Jane hop over the hedges and run to the cab. She looked back at him over her shoulder, flinging her hair to the side as the cabbie stumbled out of the driver's side door in a hurry. She pointed directly at him, startling him when he saw the look of pure terror on her face.

A police car chirped its siren briefly as it pulled up beside the taxi, which had blocked off both lanes of the street. A pair of officers stepped out of the squad car and ran over to Mary Jane, who was still sobbing and pointing at the wallcrawler. One of them tried to calm her while the other started to draw his weapon.

"Stay right there, buddy!" the officer commanded.

This wasn't right. It couldn't be. Something was wrong with the entire situation, but he didn't think he would be able to convince the police of that. Quickly stepping back out the light provided by the overhead lamp, Spider-Man leapt over a set of shrubs and ran off into the concealment offered by Central Park. He didn't know what was going on but he did know that he couldn't stay there to figure it out.

Spider-Man fired off a string of webbing and watched it connect to the edge of a building. Yanking back on the elastic material he pushed off the ground and shot up into the night sky. He flew straight at the side of the building and clutched it with his grip, sticking to the side of the vertical surface. Crawling in a similar fashion to the creature he had taken his persona from, Spider-Man crept along the wall and back into the side alley, all the while thoughts of what could be going on swirling in his head.

"What the hell just happened back there?" he wondered aloud.

Reaching the rooftop, Spider-Man flipped over the edge and sat down. He let himself fall back against the edge and ripped his mask off. His spider-sense told him it was safe to reveal his real face. He wanted fresh oxygen, not the stale-tasting air that was filtered through his mask.

The look on MJ's face bothered him immensely. Not only was it similar, too similar, to the looks he received from the general public but it was stronger. More intense. She had been genuinely scared of him.

He placed his palms against his forehead and touched his elbows to his knees. That couldn't have been Mary Jane. He'd been witness to such extravagant things as cloning, replicants, android duplicates, and even alternate reality versions of people. In dealing with the more colorful criminal crowd, Spider-Man had all ready listed several names that had the power to screw with his head in such a manner.

His list of enemies seemed to grow each week, and more than one of them were capable of performing the scenario that had unfolded. The question was which member of his rogue's gallery was behind it this time?

Sure that the answer was right in front of his face and that he just wasn't looking in the right place, Spider-Man hopped back up to his feet and replaced his mask over his skull. He looked around the view of the city for a moment to get his bearings, and then vaulted off the side of the roof. A webline broke his fall and rocketed him across the skyline like a slingshot. He fired off strand after strand of his signature webbing, weaving in and out of particular buildings.

The first place he needed to start looking for answers was at his apartment. When he had left shortly after dinner, a meal that Mary Jane herself had prepared for them, his wife had been resting comfortably in front of the television. She typically made it to bed before he came home a few hours before dawn, but every once in a while he would catch her curled on where he had left her on the couch. If there was someone posing as his wife then the first thing he had to tell was tell her about it.

He latched another thin strand of webbing onto the corner of the building across from where his apartment rested. He swung both of his feet out hard, using the gained momentum to rise higher into the air. At the apex of his swing he let go of the webline and tucked his legs under his crossed arms. He somersaulted backwards due to the angle at which he had let go of the webbing and landed in a crouch on top of a water tower. Even an Olympic gymnast would have been envious of his maneuver.

A long way from Queens where he had spent a lot of his childhood, Spidey plopped down onto the Manhattan roof across from his own. Nearly every night he returned home he would perform the same act, scouting out his roof before hopping across in case someone was watching. He had gone to great measures in the past to make sure his identity as Peter Parker remained wholly separate from his alter-ego of Spider-Man. Regardless of the fact that he had a long-lasting connection between the identities, where he would pose as Spidey for his own pictures and turn them into the Daily Bugle as Parker, he wanted the world at large to truly believe they were two individual people.

So when he peered through his apartment window and saw someone standing in his kitchen that looked exactly like him, he wasn't quite sure what to think.

"Oh my god…" Spider-Man muttered.

He couldn't believe the information that his eyes were sending to his brain. Peter Parker was standing in the kitchen of the small apartment, busily chopping an onion to toss into a boiling pot of water on the stove. Everything from the length of his hair to the way he wiggled his nose at the smell of the onion seemed to mimic Parker, yet that was impossible.

Spider-Man was Parker. Parker was Spider-Man. The two couldn't possibly exist as separate characters, and yet there he was. Spider-Man shook his head, hoping that when he finished and refocused his pupils that the imposter Parker would be gone and he would be staring into an empty apartment. When he opened his eyes again he watched in horror as Peter Parker dumped the bits of onion into the boiling water.

Spider-Man placed a foot on the edge of the roof, fully intending to jump across the street below and bust throw the window. Whatever game was being played he would not be a willing participant. Just as soon as he was ready to make the jump however, a sound caught his attention.

At first it sounded like a thinly veiled alarm, but it grew louder within a moment. Spider-Man probably wouldn't have been able to hear it at all if there had been any traffic on the street under him. Not only did the unexpected but familiar noise hold his attention, but it seemed to be coming from inside his own apartment.

Crying. It was the sound of a baby crying.

Spider-Man watched Parker wipe his hands off with a towel that had been draped over his shoulder and run through the kitchen into the living room. He had to stand totally on the ledge to see what was transpiring, but in amazement he witnessed Peter Parker bend over a crib behind the sofa and gently pick up a wailing infant.

Parker cradled the baby in his arms as he bounced back and forth lightly on his feet to try and comfort her. Finally placing her over his shoulder, he patted her back to burp her. As Spider-Man watched himself care for the child, his eyes began to go dry from his refusal to blink.

"What the hell is going on?" Spider-Man yelled.

The vigilante prepared himself again to make the jump, bending his knees slightly in order to use his increased strength to launch his entire body across the street and through the window. As his leg muscles tightened he heard something explode behind him, like a muffled car backfiring. A few wisps of smoke swam out in front of him. Before he could react he felt something thin wrap around his upper torso and yank him back off the roof edge.

Lying flat on his back, Spider-Man angled his neck back to look behind him where the noise had come from. Large plumes of smoke now covered the roof, which had to have been the cause for the muffled explosion. At the center of the smoke stood a tall and eerie figure, whose costume bore green and purple hues. Spider-Man focused on the figure, recognizing him instantly.

"Mysterio!" Spider-Man said, making the villain's name sound like a swear word. "Okay, that makes sense. Should have figured that one out."

"You won't be able to even form coherent thoughts when I'm through with you, wallcrawler," Mysterio replied. His domed head reflected Spider-Man's image back at him as his echoing voice answered Spider-Man's accusation.

"Yeah, we'll see about that. If I had a nickel for every time I bashed in that fish bowl on your shoulders—"

Spider-Man strained to stand back up, but found his arms were still clasped to his side by whatever had grabbed him. He looked down to see a humongous python wrapped around his torso, its scales constricting and making it harder to pull in a breath.

Spidey tried to break the grasp again but found himself stuck. "Fancy illusion, Mysty. Hard light holograms again or simple robotics? I'll admit that your knack for getting around my spider-sense is getting better, but you just have to know this fake snake won't hold me for long."

"Illusion is a grand weapon against a feeble-minded threat such as yourself, Spider-Man," the villain stated, "but you'll soon learn that I am no longer bound by such archaic methods."

"Uh-huh. Sure. Whatever."

Regardless of the doubts in Spider-Man's mind, he admitted to himself that the snake coiled around his torso seemed to be much more than an average python. His strength, proportionally greater than the average human being, another boon of his irradiated blood, couldn't budge the long scales of the snake. As he tried to lift his arms away the snake only hold him that much tighter. Soon he was gasping for breath.

"Do you see, wallcrawler?" Mysterio commented. His flowing purple cape billowed in the smoke and smog that had accompanied his entrance. "I'm not the same illusionist since we last met. This time you'll be crucified before me in a grand finale worthy of the largest stage!"

As Spider-Man struggled against losing his consciousness, he saw another shadow appear beside the villain's. Long and thin, it was human in shape but with points extending all around it. He tilted back to see who else had joined the fray, but all he could make out before losing his vision altogether were their feet. Beside Mysterio's green boots were planted a grotesque pair of gray feet sans any type of covering. The toes looked like barbs extending from the base of the feet, and the skin covering them looked like mashed, wet paper.

The python constricted ever tighter, and even though Spider-Man fought to stay conscious, he inevitably lost the battle. The last thing he heard before drifting off was the noise of Mysterio laughing maniacally, along with a hissing and wheezing from the newcomer that sent a chill up Spider-Man's spine.

* * *

_**Next Issue** – We shift gears and take a look at this strange evening from another perspective! "Tangled" continues, so face front, true believer!_


	2. Chapter 2

The Spectacular Spider-Man 

Issue #2 – Tangled, Part Two written by Zak Chambers

* * *

Boiling water sloshed over the edge of its container, scalding a man's hand. He pulled his appendage back quickly, sucking in a breath as he did so. The pain shot up his arm, causing his nerves to shudder.

"Crap," he muttered as he turned on the cold water in the kitchen sink and ran his hand under it. "Teach me to not pay attention. Nice if I had some forewarning here."

Despite the irritation he continued on with his work, wiping his hand off on a towel slung over his shoulder. He grasped a long blade with his other hand and stabbed it into a shiny tomato, slicing down. After mincing the tomato he sprinkled it on top of a bowel of salad and set it to the side, determined to concentrate more on the boiling chicken that had assaulted him.

Peter Parker whistled along happily with the clock radio attached to the underside of his kitchen cabinets. It was rare that he had the opportunity to make dinner for his wife since his life as a freelance photographer kept him on call at the strangest hours. His employer, J. Jonah Jameson, had no qualms about waking him up at three in the morning if it meant getting a snapshot of the city's most notorious vigilante.

Photos of those nature were Parker's stock in trade. He had captured the infamous Spider-Man on film more than anyone else in the business, and it had gained him a minor reputation. Which was fine with him. His wife, the actress on the verge of being a huge star, would be able to have enough fame for both of them once her career took off again. He was content being a good husband and father.

No sooner had the thought of his daughter crossed his mind than she decided it was time to wake up. Her cries caught his attention the split second after they had begun, given his practice at picking her wails out between the television and alarm clock. It was almost like a second sense.

He turned the burner down on the stovetop and wiped his hands off before running into the living room. "Awake all ready, May?" Peter said as he bent over behind the couch and reached into the crib. "Mommy will be home soon. We'll all have dinner together, how about that, princess? Huh?"

Baby May responded with a burp as Peter patted her on the back. He chuckled at her uncouth answer to his questioning until another sound caught his attention. Something outside. It sounded like a muffled car backfiring, which in Manhattan was nothing to write home about. He glanced through the window and thought he saw something slip off the edge of the roof across the street, moving just beyond his line of sight.

**( Seem familiar? Read last issue to see what went down!)**

He squinted and took a step forward but the phone jumped to life with a loud ringing, matching that of his infant daughter. He crossed through the living room in three giant steps, balancing May with one arm while he picked up the receiver with his free hand.

"Parker residence," he said.

"Peter!"

"Mary Jane?" Her voice sounded different. Worried. And that made _him_ worried. Was she panting? "What's wrong? Where are you?"

His wife took a second to swallow before answering. "The local precinct," she answered. "Peter… Peter I need you. You need to come down here. I was… I was almost raped tonight."

He was shocked, unsure of what to say. "Are you okay? Where? When? What happened? Are you all right?" The words flew out of his mouth so fast that he couldn't guarantee that they were comprehensible.

"I'm fine now. I'm safe here at the police station. Oh god, Peter. It was so horrible. I just… God, Peter. And then that Spider-Man showed up for some reason. I was scared for my life! But just… Come down here and get me. Bring my baby girl. I want to come home."

"Of course, of course. I'll be right there. Just hang tight, Mary Jane. I'm on my way. I love you."

She returned the sentiment and hung up the phone, but Peter held his receiver for a long while after the call disconnected. He had lived in New York City for most of his life but had never met someone who had gone through such an ordeal, let alone been so close to them. His mind started racing as the worry built once more. Even though Mary Jane had told him she was fine now he still felt the trauma in her voice.

May stirred in his arm, reminding him that he needed to move quickly. He ran into the main bedroom and grabbed a set of heavier clothes for May to keep her warm. Less than five minutes later he was running out of the lobby of his building and looking for a cab to hail.

The local police precinct was ten blocks away; not a long drive by an NYC cabbie's standards. It gave him the time he needed to collect his thoughts, though, which mainly consisted of Spider-Man's involvement.

He had never held a full conversation with the wallcrawler but he had followed his exploits enough to know that he wasn't the menace that Jonah made him out to be. Mary Jane distrusted the vigilante, as did his aunt. Both of them would go on about the recklessness of a masked man swinging through the city whenever they saw Peter's latest photo in the paper. His wife respected the fact that Spider-Man was indirectly responsible for their rent money each month but she still held a certain distaste for the webbed renegade.

His own opinions about the vigilante had never really matter, until now. Now, when his wife had called him crying about being attacked. What did Spider-Man have to do with it? Why was he there?

"This your stop, buddy?" the cabbie asked after pulling up to the curb.

Peter threw money over the cab driver's shoulder and told him to keep the change. He didn't want to waste time dabbling with coins when his wife needed him possibly more than ever. He leapt out onto the sidewalk and bolted up the stairs leading into the police station and burst through the main door, which drew more than a couple looks from nearby officers.

The precinct was largely homage to the days long gone by. With a city budget to consider, the old wooden moldings that had been installed upon the building's original founding were still in place, along with the stained and warped desks, chairs, and doors. There were a few scattered officers moving through the lobby, each wearing a newer uniform that stood out against the musty walls. Those that paid attention to his arrival quickly dismissed him once they noticed the infant clutched in his arms.

"My wife," he told the officer sitting behind the front desk. "I'm here to see my wife. Where can I find her?"

The officer behind the desk looked to be in his fifties. He didn't pull his eyes away from the stack of papers he was thumbing through when Peter had approached. "When was she booked?" he replied.

"No. She wasn't arrested. She was assaulted. An hour ago I think. Please, just tell me where I can see her and—"

"Peter!"

He turned at the sound of his name to see his wife standing just outside the doorway of a side office. Tears immediately began to fall from her eyes when she saw Peter and their daughter bound across the room and grab her. She coughed down the sobs begging to be released from her throat, allowing just a moment of restitute between them.

"Are you okay?" was the first thing that came out of his mouth upon reaching her.

"Fine, I'm fine," she replied after choking down the sobs. "May…how's my girl? Mommy's here, sweety."

"What happened?"

"Oh, Peter. It was horrible. I was coming home from the audition and coming through Central Park, and these two…_thugs_ grabbed me!"

"It's okay, it's okay," Peter said. He held her tightly in his arms, allowing enough room for May to snuggle between their chests. Mary Jane sobbed gently against his shoulder, her tears instantly absorbed by the cotton mesh that comprised his Oxford shirt.

"And then Spider-Man showed up!" she continued. "God, Peter. That menace came after me as soon as he was done wrestling with the creeps that grabbed me. He's a sick freak!"

"He chased you?"

"Yes! He followed me out to the street and if it hadn't been for… Oh, Peter, I don't know what's happening to me. Take me home. I want to go home."

He nodded his head gently as he led Mary Jane over to a bench in the lobby. He answered the elder officer's questions and assured him that she would return for a formal statement once she had calmed down before he took his family outside and hailed a cab. The crisp night air awaited them, numbing the general air of uneasiness that hovered around the small family. Peter guided his wife down the precinct steps to the curb where he quickly found them a ride home.

Something in the back of his mind was bothering. He couldn't quite place the sensation, and he tried to push it aside. The more he shoved, however, the more the sensation grew. At first he attributed the feeling as mild hysteria over what was happening to his wife, compounded by his natural agitated state. In fact, the more he pondered on the eerie perturbation, the more his thoughts could focus on nothing else. It had begun just as soon as his wife had mentioned Spider-Man.

When they arrived home, the sense of _tingling_ in the back of his head was all he could think about.

* * *

"Parker, you're fired!"

Peter fought the need to roll his eyes as the publisher of the Daily Bugle, the New York newspaper that he derived most of his paychecks from, flapped his arms about widely while he continued to rant about what an incompetent staffer Peter was. The fact that Peter was nothing more than a freelancer seemed to have slipped Jonah's mind again as the publisher's signature behavior was showing in spades.

"Until you reveal your contacts I'm not shelling out one penny for these pictures of Spider-Man," Jonah said. "Why, in my day—"

"We'll take them, Peter," Joseph Robertson said, a statement that shocked Jonah into silence. 'Robbie' was the yin to Jonah's yang. He typically stood in the background while Jonah ranted about whatever it was that he deemed noticeable in his editorials. Robbie nodded to Peter as he stooped over Jonah's desk and picked up the stack of photographs, saying, "I'll work out the spread now. Nice to see you again, Peter."

Jonah looked ready to explode as his face began turning red. Robertson, editor in chief for the Bugle, ignored the look of irritation and left the office swifter than Jonah's vengeance could follow, leaving Peter alone with the publisher.

In his years of freelance work Peter had leaned to lean on Robbie and avoid Jonah. Ever since he had first grabbed a quick snapshot of Spider-Man when he was seventeen Peter Parker knew he wanted to be in the newspaper business. The energy of a world class publication had hooked him instantly. Jonah's thin wallet had done much to keep him from becoming full time, but most of the staff regarded him as their fellow employee all the same.

Jonah's office seemed to be designed to keep all focus on him for all who dared enter. Like a throne room, his expensive chair and desk, garnished with various awards and recognitions that the Daily Bugle had received under his watch as if to imply the credit for success was all his doing, was raised a few inches off the floor. One had to look slightly higher than normal when addressing the publisher even when Jonah was seated.

"As I was saying," Jonah began again as he paced behind his desk, "in my time you revealed your sources to your publisher! So how is it you get all these shots of that menace, hmm? Spill it, Parker! Are you in cahoots with the wallcrawler or not?"

"Cahoots?" Peter opened his mouth to reply further but found no words would come forth. The tingling sensation began to buzz again in the back of his head, distracting him. What was happening?

"Are you going to give me an answer?" Jonah demanded after a long moment.

"I…"

The tingling was beginning to overwhelm him. He shook his head to try and clear his mind, but could only concentrate on the disarming sensation in the back of his head. He had felt it yesterday when bringing Mary Jane home from the police station but ignored it, thinking it was nothing more than stress getting to him. Now it was ruining his ability to communicate. He figured that swinging in to the office to sell some old snapshots of Spidey to go along with the story that the Bugle was sure to publish about what happened with his wife would be a good move.

He thought of Spider-Man again and suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu, which mixed uncomfortably with the tingling sensation still raging in his mind.

"Parker! Are you even paying attention to me? That's the problem with today's youth. You're all off in Dreamland instead of keeping yourselves grounded in the present. When I say jump your only answer should be—"

"S'cuse me," someone interrupted. The buzzing in the back of Peter's head died down as he focused on the newcomer, a familiar man that he respected more than just about anyone else on staff. "Sorry to bust in, Mr. Jameson," Ben Urich said, "but I just got a hit on the wire about Spider-Man tangling with some freak uptown. Mind if I steal Pete for my photographer? I'm headed there now."

The shade of red on Jonah's face died down minutely. Urich, one of their few reporters that had earned more than a handful of the awards on Jonah's desk, didn't necessarily throw his weight around the office. But he wasn't as subtle as Jonah would have liked him to be. "Take him," the publisher stated. "It's like talking to a brick wall anyway. And, Parker! Get me decent shots this time!"

"Ignore that bag of wind," Ben said as he walked with Peter to the elevators. The torrent of chaos that was the newsroom bullpen whirled around them as they weaved between desks to take their leave. "Ol' J.J. knows better than he lets on. He wouldn't risk losing you to a rival, not for what you're able to do."

Peter nodded but still couldn't shake the feeling still lurking underneath his conscious thoughts. Something felt wrong. "If he didn't scare me off when I was a kid he won't be able to do it now," Peter finally said when the elevator door dinged open.

Ben reached into the deep pockets of his trench coat and woefully pulled out a bit-sized piece of chewing gum. "I just might have to take up smoking again to crush my craving for this nicotine gum," the ace reporter said. "Helpful my ass. Say, Pete. You okay? You look…well, bad."

"Gee, thanks, Ben."

"Hey, call it my superior powers of deduction, but you look like you went a few rounds with Daredevil. Not sleeping?"

Peter shot Ben a look as the reporter chewed away on his drug-releasing gum. For some reason he suddenly felt paranoid around Ben, as if the reporter were digging into him for information. He didn't like being the subject of anything Ben Urich investigated…

Peter closed his eyes, pushing away the paranoid thoughts. Ben was his friend. He wouldn't be snooping in his life. Why would he? Peter didn't have anything to hide. Did he? He couldn't help but think of how easy it would be to concentrate if the annoying _tingling _would just stop.

"Pete?"

"Yeah, sorry," he replied. "Just… I'm fine. The baby is keeping me up. That's all."

"Whatever you say, Pete."

They hailed a cab once they exited the building and headed for the uptown location that Ben had noted. The cabbie whisked them away in a flash, jutting in and out of traffic like a renegade driving to lose the police. The directions Ben gave spilled out of his mouth in a garble, but the cabbie picked on them just the same. Living in a place like NYC, they learned to pick up bits and pieces as needed while filtering out the rest.

"Where exactly are we headed?" Peter asked after the cab took them a few blocks at breakneck speeds.

"Where all the big fights take place," Ben replied. "The Garden."

Madison Square Garden came into view as the cab roared around another street corner, taking careful heed of pedestrians all the while. A crowd had gathered by the time they hopped out of the cab along with a dozen squad cars. New York's Finest had all ready erected a barrier to keep the ground back with practiced precision. The city was home to some of the most ruthless villains to ever grace the world and at one point or another they would make their presence known at The Garden.

The large television screen that was embedded in the sky displayed a startling image, capturing the attention of the audience below. The camera, wherever it was hiding at, showed a close-up shot of a dangling and obviously beaten Spider-Man, complete with ripped costume.

Below the screen, hanging from his own weblines, was the wallcrawler himself. Spider-Man hung with arms outstretched above The Garden's entrance, each appendage held out by a line of webbing. The gray signature material was wrapped around his wrists, making sure that he was held still for the world to see like a crucified caricature of his typical presence. His head hung down, marking him as either dead or unconscious.

"Gathered spectators!" a reverberating voice roared from somewhere overhead. "For too long have you suffered under the watchful and terrifying eye of the one called Spider-Man! Tonight, before an audience of his peers, and thrust into the limelight for the first time, the menace of New York will at long last be unmasked!"

"Oh my God," Peter mumbled quietly. "That's Mysterio."

Peter fidgeted with his 35mm camera as he watched the green and purple figure of Mysterio descend from the clouds. He squeezed off a few shots from where he stood behind the crowd before he shoved his way deeper into the mass, angling for the best shot possible.

"Always the showman," Ben said as he followed Peter into the crowd. "That nutcase is more dangerous than all the rest if you ask me. He casts these illusions; makes you see whatever he wants."

"You think this is an illusion now?" Peter asked between being elbowed by other onlookers.

"Hard to tell. Could be. Illusion or not, it's news."

As Peter snapped off shot after shot he was hard pressed to disagree. Part of him wanted to fire off negative remarks along with the rest of the crowd, which the police were looking to judge as a soon-to-be mob. The other half of Peter Parker was apprehensive, partially due to what had happened to his wife, and partially because of…what was it? He was having trouble thinking again. His thoughts were fogged down by the buzzing in the back of his head, masking what should otherwise be a simple act.

Mysterio swept in on top of a pile of fluffy clouds, slicing through the sky like a comet. Within a moment of his arrival, pausing for dramatic effect of course, the villain was floating beside the hanging vigilante. "You shall all bear witness as the accursed Spider is placed into the court of public opinion," he continued to address the crowd. "His crimes are well documented. His punishment must fit those crimes!"

Peter finally worked his way to the front of the crowd and up to the barrier, stopping just beside a towering street light. An officer held a hand out to stop him, but Peter was as close as he wanted to be. Using his camera, he zoomed in on the lifeless Spider-Man, hanging like a piñata, centering the black emblem on his chest in the lens. As he clicked the aperture open on the camera, something else clicked as well.

The tingling grew, flooding his mind with a sense of dread and danger.

He felt Ben at his side, screaming at him something unintelligible.

The police officers in front of him rushed forward, waving their arms for some reason.

The noise of the crowd had started to die off, resting in a general murmur of awe and wonder.

Peter realized he was breathing heavily. He didn't know why. He noticed his camera wasn't in his hands anymore and wondered what had happened to it. Thinking he may have dropped it in all the excitement, he looked down, hoping that the lens hadn't cracked. Cash was hard to come by and replacing yet another camera was something he couldn't afford.

Instead of seeing his feet firmly planted on the ground, he saw the top of Ben Urich's head. Peter squinted, confused. He looked around and spotted his camera, which had somehow gotten out of his hands and was lying just beneath Mysterio in broken heap.

He suddenly realized how it had gotten there: he had thrown. He had thrown his camera directly as Mysterio, and judging from the crack in the villain's helmet, he had been on target. The green and purple supervillain was facing him, his fingers opening and closing in clenched fists.

Had he really just thrown his camera? Why? What was wrong with him? The buzzing, the tingling, it just wouldn't stop.

"Pete!" he heard Ben call up to him. "What the holy hell are you doing up there?"

He looked down again and finally understood. He wasn't standing on the ground beside Ben any longer. He was fifteen above Ben, above the police officer, above the entire gathered crowd. He was _clinging_ to the side of the street light through the soles of his shoes. He looked at his left hand and found it gently touching the lamppost, adhering to it effortlessly.

"What the hell…?"

Peter Parker, the typical New Yorker with an unreliable job, bills, and a family, had just assaulted a known supervillain and then leapt into the air, sticking to the side of a street light like it was his second nature.

"Oh my God…" Peter said while he watched in a mix of confusion and horror as Mysterio charged through the air directly for him.

* * *

_**Next Issue** – "Tangled" wraps up in an explosive story that explains just what the heck is happening to both Spidey and Pete! Don't miss the stunning conclusion that will make you look at the wallcrawler differently._


	3. Chapter 3

The Spectacular Spider-Man

Issue #3 – Tangled, Part Three written by Zak Chambers

* * *

His head was pounding in time with his heartbeat, forcing a tinge of pain through his entire body upon every beat. He tried to open his eyes and felt woozy, dizzy, and unbalanced all at once. It felt like a steamroller had driven back and forth over him until it had run out of gas, and he was sure he had the bruises to prove it.

He didn't know where he was, but he could tell he was hanging over a city street somewhere. Below him there was a gathered mob of people, citizens of New York, all of them screaming and pointing in several directions. He felt the wind blow harshly against him and wondered just how far off the ground he was.

Peering through the white lenses of his mask, Spider-Man gasped when he realized that he was hanging by his own weblines over Madison Square Garden. He struggled to break his bonds, but found that he had no leverage. He was stuck, for the moment. His blurry vision finally began to clear up and he looked around to see if there was any way to free himself.

Instead, Spider-Man saw the angered form of Mysterio float down past him atop a fluffy cloud. He knew that the cloud was nothing more than an illusion, but to Mysterio's credit he was getting better and better each time Spidey encountered him. He remembered being snagged by the villain on the rooftop adjacent to his own building and how his spider-sense had failed to warn him.

Looking back in his mind's eye, Spider-Man remembered seeing the gnarled, grotesque feet of another party that had stepped out of the shadows just before he lost consciousness. Who was it? Mysterio was a bit of a loner but he had been known to work with kindred spirits when it suited him.

"I see you have awaken," a raspy voice said behind Spider-Man.

Spidey struggled again against his bonds, but to no avail. The voice had startled him, and along with the increasing panic in the crowd below, the whole scenario was getting out of hand. He was hanging from the huge digital screen on top of The Garden, which meant that whoever had spoken behind him must be sitting in the recesses of the framework.

"Not that you were ever really asleep," the voice continued on. "Little man…soon I will use your mind to return home, where I truly belong."

"Not big on the Big Apple, huh?"

The raspy voice nearly choked on its own laughter. "Compared to where I come from its size is infinitesimal. Your mind is unlike most I have encountered."

"You were with Mysterio," Spider-Man said. "You're behind all this. Behind someone impersonating me."

"I am…but what is it exactly that I am behind? Do you even know? No, I doubt you understand what is happening here, but soon enough it won't matter."

Spider-Man struggled uselessly against his own webbing, but for some reason couldn't muster the strength to break free. After pausing in his efforts to gasp a mouthful of fresh oxygen, his eye caught something moving within the crowd. One of people below had stolen the attention off of him, including Mysterio. The villain floated faster and faster down to the crowd, waving an arm frantically in the direction in which he flew.

He saw a man bound out of the crowd and launch something at Mysterio. It collided with his glass helmet, cracking it. The man who had thrown it then, amazingly, gripped a street light and hung to it without changing his expression, which was stark.

"Whoa," Spider-Man said as he let out with a breath. He focused on who the person was and realized that the man wasn't holding to the street light, he was clinging to it, using nothing more than his own touch to adhere to the metal pole.

The man, whom he was surprised he had not recognized all ready, was the exact same man he had seen in his apartment the night before. The man that had his own face, his own clothes, his own mannerisms. Peter Parker.

"Ah, yes," the raspy voice said. "The other end of the equation has appeared. Soon I will be free, and you will be lost forever inside your own mind."

* * *

"Peter, get down now!" the newspaper reporter, Ben Urich, yelled over the growing alarm of the crowd.

Peter Parker clung to the lamppost, but he had no idea why he had done so. He saw the shattered camera he had thrown at Mysterio, not even remembering that he had thrown it, and cringed. If he had been trying to get the villain's attention, he had certainly succeeded.

He was still shocked to see that his skin helped him cling to the lamppost. What was happening to him, and what was the strange tingling sensation burning in the back of his skull?

Mysterio had grown close enough to launch an attack at him, and the buzzing suddenly erupted inside his brain, concentrated mostly on his right side. Despite the protests from Ben, despite the roaring mob of New Yorkers surrounding him, Peter crawled up the length of the street light and jumped, catching the outstretching part of the lamp where the bulb hung. He curled around it and swung his legs down, displaying an impressive amount of agility that he never knew he had, and began to swing up and over the lamppost.

He released his grip as he swung under the light, and let the momentum carry him through the air. He headed directly for the hovering Mysterio, who was apparently too shocked to retaliate yet. His feet connected with Mysterio's chest, knocking him clear off his cloud, which Peter landed on gracefully and found that it was actually a flat disc that sported vents with plumes of white smoke coming out.

Somehow, innately, Peter knew what he had to do. He looked at the hanging form of Spider-Man, who seemed to be roused now as his head was bobbing back and forth, and leaned to one side to try and guide the flat hover disc through the air. Mysterio slammed to the ground and was instantly surrounded by the gathered crowd, but that didn't stop him from screaming his discontent at Peter.

Unsteady at first, Peter soon gained control of the disc and began to soar toward the giant digital screen hanging over Madison Square Garden. It approached quickly, much faster than he had gauged, and he nearly collided with the hanging Spider-Man. He leaned away on the disc and succeeded in slowly himself down, now only nudging the structure behind Spider-Man once he arrived.

"I'd ask who the hell you are, but that wouldn't really change anything right now, would it?" Spidey asked.

"Probably not," Peter responded as he pulled at the webbing that had lashed Spider-Man down.

"We're going to need some wire cutters, or a chainsaw, or the Thing to get me lose. I've been trying—"

SNAP!

"Or…you could just use your apparently huge muscles."

Peter looked almost as shocked as Spider-Man. He obviously hadn't expected to break the weblines, which had stood up against people much stronger than him, with his bare hands. He kept going, snapping away each webline with ease and letting Spider-Man slouch back down to the crossbeams beneath him.

"Maybe we need to have a little talk," Spider-Man said as he rubbed his wrists to get the blood circulating again.

"Yeah, maybe," Peter replied, but he never got the chance.

Instead a cloud of darkness spread over both of them, choking all of the light from the vicinity. Peter gagged as the cloud engulfed him, and the taste of it made him want to vomit instantly. His vision left him entirely and he fell to his knees beside the gasping Spider-Man.

"Whoever you are," Mysterio screamed as he returned to them, you have just sealed your own fate!"

* * *

The blackness swallowed Spider-Man whole. The inky void surrounded him completely and he pulled in a sharp breath at the last second, just before the cloud overtook them. His mask filtered out some of the black smog, but it clung to the lenses of his mask instead, making it impossible to see. He heard Peter gasping and choking beside him and knew that it would now be up to him to save them.

He felt for Peter and wrapped an arm around his waste. He blindly shot a webline out of his wrist and felt it latch onto something beneath the screen, away from the open street and back underneath the roof of The Garden. Back where he had heard the raspy voice emit from.

Spidey yanked back hard on the anchored webline and pulled both him and Peter to safety, pulling them away from the black void Mysterio had unleashed. Peter gulped down the fresh oxygen, as did Spider-Man, and they tumbled together in a mess of arms and legs onto the wood flooring.

Spider-Man rubbed the lenses on his mask and looked around, seeing that they were now underneath the roof of The Garden where workers would probably come to do maintenance on the giant digital screen. There was a layer of dust over most everything, with stacks of crates and steel crossbeams randomly placed throughout the floor.

"You okay?" he asked Peter, who coughed an affirmative. "Good. We have to move before—"

"Your demise will not be as theatrical as I had hoped, Spider-Man!" Mysterio bellowed as he strode through the dense blackness. "But nevertheless, I shall be content to hang your corpse for all to see!"

"Mysty, I know I've told you this before," Spider-Man responded as he stood up, fighting the urge that his bruised legs gave him to just sit back down, "but no one in their right mind is going to take you seriously when you have a fish bowl on your head."

Mysterio lashed out with his arms, sending a dozen white orbs toward the wallcrawler which promptly exploded in bursts of bright light. His eyes still adjusted to the relative darkness that the cloud had brought, Spider-Man found himself dizzy from the spiraling lights that danced in front of him. He threw himself to one side and landed perpendicular to the floor with his feet clinging to a support beam.

Spots had been burned into his retinas, but they were all ready beginning to fade. He saw the blotchy mass of green and purple that was Mysterio and aimed his wrists, firing off a pair of weblines toward the villain. The webbing splashed against Mysterio, who, with a wave of his hand, wiped the sticky strings away clean.

"Did you think that I had not learned from our previous encounters?" Mysterio said, and Spidey could tell that beneath his cracked bowl he was sneering.

"Always have to do things the hard way…" Spider-Man whispered as he sprung back into action.

The wallcrawler pushed off of the support beam and sailed through the air, the great strength in his legs catapulting him toward his enemy. He stretched his arms out in front of him in order to collide with Mysterio, but he found himself only falling back to the wooden floor in a heap. He pushed himself up and saw that he had only jumped a few feet as opposed the whole way across the floor.

"Confused?" Mysterio asked with a laugh. "Your powers are failing you! Give up, Spider-Man."

It didn't make any sense. Why had he been able to do what he normally did the evening before, using his powers to their full extent, only to now have them fail him? He couldn't even break his own webbing, and now he lacked the proportional strength that he was so accustomed to.

Memories of his powers failing him in the past flooded him. It hadn't been that long ago that his powers had become faulty under specific circumstances. Was it happening again? Was this a relapse? Had he not solved the problems of his own biochemistry?

Then there was Peter. Peter had easily been able to snap his webbing. But was it Peter? It was impossible for him to think that his own alter-ego had not only been in his apartment, with a baby he had thought deceased, and was now in the thick of a fight with him. Of course, there had to be explanation, but he couldn't think of what it was.

Unless cloning was involved. Again.

Feeling the pang of his spider-sense, Spidey rolled to the side and narrowly avoided the stab of a giant knife. The blade, easily as big as him, floated in the air as it was extracted by an invisible hand from the wooden floor. Splinters were pulled out with its tip, spreading across the floor haphazardly.

"Your own mind will be your downfall, Spider-Man!" Mysterio bellowed as he made a dramatic gesture that seemingly controlled the giant knife.

The blade swung horizontally through the air, threatening to slice through anything that got in its way. Spider-Man, happy that his agility still remained, ducked under the blade and then flipped backward after it passed over him, landing steadily on its flat edge.

He fired two weblines at the hilt of the giant knife and then jumped off, swinging his weblines behind him. The blade, caught in his web, flung to the side and smashed into the wall where it chipped and shattered.

Spider-Man leveled his gaze at Mysterio in a silent challenge for him to make his next move. "What else ya got, Mysty?"

"Enough!" the raspy voice from before spoke, the soft acoustics traveling easily throughout the floor.

Mysterio paused, seemingly hung in midair. Spider-Man looked around, pivoting back and forth, but all he saw was a frozen Mysterio and a curious Peter Parker, who was also looking around to spy the newfound voice.

There was a thick tension held in the air. Spider-Man could sense that something was wrong, inherently wrong, but it had nothing to do with his spider-sense. The roaring from the crowd outside was gone, replaced by a blaring silence. Mysterio hung in space like a paused video tape. As odd as the scenario had become, there was still just something that didn't seem right about the whole situation.

Mysterio was known for his parlor tricks and Spider-Man hadn't discounted those illusions just yet. It wouldn't be the first time that all his senses would tell him one thing when in actuality a completely different thing was transpiring. More often than not he would find himself surrounded by Mysterio's false hopes when the truth lay buried under mounds of lies. It was disconcerting, but he had overcome the illusions before. He just had to focus.

"Still convinced that the costumed villain is the main source of the problem?" the raspy voice inquired. Peter jumped slightly from how close the voice seemed to be. "What makes you think you are experiencing an illusion?"

"Why don't you come out of hiding and tell me," Spidey said coldly. He hated being set up. He also hated being powerless. Until the mystery player showed his hand, he was chasing shadows in the dark.

"There is no need to present myself. My domain is all around you, Spider-Man. I must admit, when I first came to this place I was unprepared for what I found. It seems the amount of stock you place in your own duality is ill-advised."

What was that supposed to mean? Duality? Spider-Man looked at Peter, who was slowly inching his wall against a wall. The question still remained of just who this person was. It couldn't be Peter Parker, could it? Wasn't _he_ Peter Parker?

"I think we better get out of here," Peter said.

"No," Spider-Man said. "No, we can't. Something's not right here."

Spider-Man stepped forward, intending to walk to Peter and rally their efforts to find a solution, or at least part of the truth of what was happening to them. He managed to take one step before an invisible barrier held him in place. He pounded against it, but again, his strength had either failed him or was useless against whatever halted his movements.

"Peter!" he called out, catching the worried look of Parker.

"Haven't you figured it out by now?" the voice asked mockingly. "You cannot win! Not here, not where I rule!"

"Peter, listen to me! You have to ignore him and get moving! You can't stay there!"

But Peter wasn't paying attention. Behind him Spider-Man could see a dark shadow creeping out from behind the support beams. It had to belong to the mysterious raspy voice, now apparently formed into a physical being. Whoever this person was, he was sneaking up behind Peter.

Peter matched Spider-Man's intense gaze but remained too afraid to do much of anything. None of this was making sense! Why couldn't Spider-Man figure it out? If Peter, who was supposed to be him, was displaying his powers then why wasn't he doing something to help? To fight? He pounded against the invisible barrier again as the darkness drew ever closer…

Struggling wasn't working. Trying to fight physically wasn't going to cut it here. This place, wherever they were, was not New York. The people outside, who had for some reason become as quiet as a muted television, weren't real. Mysterio, frozen in time, wasn't real. Spider-Man closed his eyes and concentrated. The awareness he experienced about his surroundings was false information. He had to shut it all out and focus.

"A dream," he mumbled. "This is all a dream."

He opened his eyes again and saw the dark void slowly closing around Peter. Carefully, cautiously, delicately, Spider-Man placed a hand against the invisible barrier and pushed through it with an effort of will. It fought him at first, putting up just as much resistance as before, but soon enough the barrier melted away until it was completely gone and he began walking toward his alter-ego again.

"What's going on?" Peter demanded in a frightened voice. "What's happening to me?"

"You…me…_we_…we're dreaming," Spider-Man replied. "This isn't real. None of it is."

"Oh, it's real enough!" the dark shroud said with a reverberating voice.

The black inky shadows stabbed into Peter's shoulders and he screamed as relentless pain poured through him. Spider-Man stumbled in his footsteps, as the pain struck him as well. He was so close now, close enough that he could almost reach out and touch Peter. But the unbearable pain was too much for him to concentrate. He was losing focus again, unable to think straight. Flashes of red pain was all he could see now.

But then a hand wrapped around his wrist and the pain seemed to subside. He looked up to see Peter grasping his arm tightly, and even though he looked as scared as ever, there was a sense of resolution in his eyes.

Determined to not let the opportunity slip away, Spider-Man placed his other arm on top of Peter's. There was a flash of bright white light and the darkness seemed to shy away.

* * *

Peter found himself lying on a rooftop, wearing his Spider-Man costume. It was wet and sticky, probably because of the puddle he was lying in. The night air clung to him as tightly as the wet suit, and he pushed himself up, pulling in a sharp breath as a cold breeze washed over him.

He looked around and recognized the roof as the one across the street from his apartment. It had been here that Mysterio had captured, although had that really happened? It seemed like that moment was so long ago now, separated from the present by a thousand years.

He heard a wheezing noise from somewhere behind him and became alert. He sprung up flipping over in the air to land gently on the edge of the roof, aiming his webshooters in the general direction of the noise. He saw a mangled form lying just a few feet from where he was, gasping for air. He immediately realized that it was the same person whose feet he had seen after Mysterio attacked him. His entire body was made of a thick hide, that gleamed in the moonlight and looked like gnarled tree bark. His fingers and toes were sharp and twisted and his face only roughly displayed a mouth and eyes.

"Who are you?" Spider-Man demanded to know. "What were you doing inside my head?"

"I…I come from the Mindscape," the being replied between gasps of breath. "I was using your mind to find a way to return. I was imprisoned in your world by a twist of fate, brought by an enemy that lost track of me."

Spider-Man stepped off of the ledge. "I don't get it. What were you doing messing with my head like that?"

"Your sense of…sense of duality would have reopened a door to the Mindscape for me to escape through, had you remained docile. I have never encountered such a unique presence. It is if…as if your mind is divided into two aspects. The spider and the man."

"So Mysterio attacking, MJ freaking out." Spider-Man took in a breath before saying his next thought out loud. "My daughter. They were all part of a dream you were using to screw with me?"

"Yes," the creature replied. "I entered your mind while you slept and was able to begin manipulating you the following night. I thought that if I spread confusion throughout your mind that I would more easily be able to use it as a gateway."

"Well, now you're going through the gates at Ryker's," Spider-Man said. "Maybe the Vault, once I place a call to the Avengers. Or maybe the Fantastic Four. One of them will cart you away."

"No, I think not," the creature said as he began to fade away. "I will not forget this encounter, Spider-Man. I know your secrets. Some day I will return to destroy you in retaliation for fighting back and forcing me to dwell in this purgatory. I am Cobweb, and your dreams will never be safe from me…"

Spider-Man shot a webline at the fading Cobweb, but it struck the roof instead. The dark creature from the Mindscape was gone, leaving Spider-Man alone with his sense of torment from having been invaded in a way that was new to him.

"They always get away!" Spider-Man declared, frustrated. "As if my own collection of baddies wasn't enough, I have to deal with new ones! Haven't I paid off my cosmic karma quota by now?"

He rubbed his head, still feeling the agony of his mental ordeal. Whoever this Cobweb was, he was gone for now. He could deal with the repercussions later. Right now all he wanted to do was go home and find his wife. MJ, who for a brief moment he recalled the dream that concerned her, was waiting for him with a thick book back at their apartment. She always read while she waited up for him.

He wanted nothing more than to crash, fall asleep, and recuperate. But the dream he had experienced had been so real, so lifelike. He wondered how long it would take Cobweb to recover and come after him again. Even still, if he did return soon, Spider-Man would be ready for him this time.

That was one thing he had learned over his years of being a hero. He would forever be a target, but he could handle it. He had made a promise long ago, one that he attempted to keep no matter what, and no matter who, crossed his path.

He hopped back up onto the roof ledge and shot a webline to swing back to his apartment building. The responsibility he felt obligated to fulfill would never go away, no matter the circumstances.

* * *

_Next issue – Enter the Lizard!_


End file.
